Maybe Chad Barefoot really believes Putin reared his head and Russia reached its tentacles into the anti-fracking forces in North Carolina.

Or maybe it’s just a cynical attempt to raise money from a Fox-fed mob of ignoramuses.

Or maybe it’s a desperate overreaction to a poll showing that voters don’t like fracking.

Whatever, Barefoot’s claim that Russia may be fighting fracking here (the theory is that fracking in North Carolina jeopardizes Russia’s economic power as a natural gas monopoly) could end up supporting my pet theory that Triangle voters have gotten wise to ludicrous and unsupported claims by politicians. And that they punish said politicians.

Barefoot started a recent fundraising email this way: "The environmentalists are on the attack again – and this time, Russia is in the mix."

You may laugh, but Mark Binker at WRAL did a serious investigation into Barefoot’s claim. (You don’t know whether to applaud that, or just sadly shake your head in dismay.)

WRAL’s fact-check decision: “Hit the brakes. There seems to be scant evidence that Russians are funding the European fracking debates, much less dabbling in fracking policy here in the United States. Experts say it’s unlikely, bordering on silly,’ to suggest the Russians would have the time, money or inclination to bother with a North Carolina legislative race. Therefore, we give this fundraising email a red light on our fact-checking scale.”

Of course, this proves nothing. Binker may be a fine reporter and all. But do you really think he or any mere journalist is capable of cracking this Kremlin conspiracy? Surely these ex-KGB men can outwit WRAL.

Binker is one of the most ideologically biased, far left ''journalists'' in the state. To say he ''fact checked'' anything is hilarious. All Binker does with anything is to politically spin check it. Heck, Binker would have probably loved working for Pravda back in the Breshnev era.

As you well know, one can spin polls, too. Fracking is a proven and safe technology that helps keep our energy costs low. It is the opposite of Democrat policies like ethanol mandates, carbon rules, and renewable energy mandates that send our energy bills through the roof.

Russia is unhappy with shale gas development, which is mostly done by fracking. Estonia, thanks to shale gas, is now completely self sufficient in gas instead of totally reliant on Russia. That is the direction that most of eastern Europe is headed thanks to shale gas. Even Ukraine in a few years will be self sufficient.

The radical environmentalists have to rely on deliberate disinformation campaigns like their debunked movie Gasland to try to thwart progress. They are nothing but a bunch of Luddites.

There are no such things as commodities. Gas prices only exsist in local markets. South Carolina only uses the gas produced in South Carolina. Kentucky only uses gas produced in Kentucky. Russia only uses gas produced in Russia. The price of gas is set by a group of ex kindergarten teachers that meet in the old Captain Kangaroo studio, in Los Angeles. They meet there and set the price for gas. It only changes according to the tax in each of the 53 states. My geography comes from Obama. If by some strange chance say all the gas produced everywhere except South Carolina dried up, then South Carolina would have the market cornered. I have no clue what this means. I think then they could put pressure on the kindergarten teachers in that studio and cause the price of gas to go up. If the group of teachers that control the price refused to go up on the price then all the Producers in South Carolina could just say, "we aint selling you anymore gas". I don't know this Barefoot guy but if Russia did want to help stop fracking anywhere, then I guess they might just have more oil than say, other people. Then they could lean on these school teachers that determine the price. I don't know for sure, but if I were the Russian guy in charge, you know their kindergarten teacher, I wouldn't tell anyone what I was doing. I would just try my best to get them to stop producing gas or oil or any energy. Heck who wants cheap energy. Besides we don't know what commodoties are and how they get priced anyway. But I will bet if we had to get our energy from Russia, they would probably just give it to us free. For sure they wouldn't charge us a lot.

Since world prices impact the price of oil and natural gas, and with the LNG transportation increasing of the latter, cheap gas and oil from the US would impact Russia, too. If they have been caught in Europe doing this, it makes sense they are doing it in the US, too.

Indeed, one wonders how much of eco-fascist Tom Steyer's money in laundered Russian money.